Birding News and Features

Join Klamath-Siskiyou eBird at the Winter Wings Festival!

This President’s Day weekend, join thousands of other bird enthusiasts at the 31st annual Winter Wings Festival in Klamath Falls, Oregon, on the shores of Upper Klamath Lake. Sponsored by the Klamath Basin Audubon Society, Winter Wings will feature an array of bird-related activities and educational workshops for all ages.

Audubon Hosts Annual Christmas Bird Count

From December 14 through January 5, tens of thousands of volunteers throughout the Americas take part in a citizen science adventure that has become a family tradition among generations-Audubon's annual Christmas Bird Count.

Each of the citizen scientists who annually braves snow, wind, or rain, to take part in the Christmas Bird Count makes an enormous contribution to conservation. Audubon and other organizations use data collected in this longest-running wildlife census to assess the health of bird populations - and to help guide conservation action.

Klamath Bird Observatory Hosts a Winter Birding Tour in Oaxaca, Mexico

Join KBO on our maiden international birding tour! We are heading to Oaxaca, Mexico, a land of  incredible diversity. Our travels will take us from the UNESCO World Heritage colonial city of Oaxaca to the stone steps of one of Mesoamerica’s great ancient ceremonial centers, Monte Alban. We’ll travel into a biosphere reserve with some of the densest cactus forests on the globe in search of the rare Military Macaw, explore hidden valleys, thick oak forests, thriving markets, pine covered mountain ridges, crumbling pyramids, small villages, meet rural artisans, farmers and cooks, and all along keep our eyes to the sky, on the lookout for some of the 750 species of birds flying around Oaxaca.

Oregon Students Team up With Cornell Lab to Create Avian Art

During the 2008-2009 school year, students from the Tualatin Junior Academy Students blended science and art with help from the Cornell Lab of Ornithology. These students' beautiful bird portraits are on display at the Cornell Lab Visitor's Center through December 2009.

As one student said, "The experience was very cool. I had never heard of the Superb Starling until I started working on this project. I think it is a beautiful bird and very unique. Now I care about birds and actually notice them!" Another seventh-grade student, Kiana, says, "When I found out scientists were studying these birds, I wondered what they did all the way over in New York. I would love to go and study birds with them."

Otis Swisher and the Birds of Roxy Ann

As we head to RoxyAnn Winery for our second annual Wings and Wine Gala, we are celebrating conservation and reflecting on a tradition of field biology which has been at the heart of conservation success stories in the United States.  Field biology is also at the heart of what we do at the Klamath Bird Observatory.  As we consider our roots in field ornithology, we honor the early conservationists of the Rogue Valley and remember Roxy Ann Peak, and its place in this history. The striking peak looks over the RoxyAnn Winery were our Gala will be held on August 22. 

Godwit Days Festival- a great eBirding success!

Thanks to all who helped make this year's Godwit Days Festival (held 16-22 April in Arcata, California) an awesome eBird success!  To make this possible,  Klamath Bird Observatory and Redwood Sciences Lab manned an eBird table, busily entering checklists from the various field trips, teaching festival participants about the benefits of and how to use eBird, and signing up numerous new “eBirders.”  Many Godwit Days participants and field trip leaders walked away with a greater knowledge and appreciation for eBird and will continue to “eBird” in an effort to help conserve the birds that we all care so much about!

"The US State of the Birds, 2009" Report Released, Using Data from Citizen Scientists!

Are you inspired by "The US State of the Birds, 2009" report (www.stateofthebirds.org) and looking for a way you can contribute to bird conservation? As an eBirder, you already are a contributing citizen scientist!  Much of the data informing the report came from citizen science projects.  The report demonstrates the value of birds as indicators of the health of our ecosystems.  Sobering declines in bird populations are shown along with encouraging evidence of the positive impact that strategic land management and conservation actions can have on bird populations.

eBirding at Winter Wings

Many thanks to Winter Wings Festival organizers, trip leaders and trip participants - Klamath-Siskiyou eBird’s first official eBird Festival was a success! The festival provided high quality eBird data from field trips traversing the Upper Klamath Basin from February 13rd – 15th.  Also, we recruited many new eBirders who will continue to contribute to conservation through birding.

eBirding with KBO in 2008

eBird Festivals: Winter Wings and Godwit Days

We are pleased to announce that the Winter Wings Festival (Klamath Falls, Oregon) and Godwit Days (Arcata, California) will be using eBird to contribute data to science and conservation in 2009.  All bird walks at these festivals will be eBird walks.

New Feature- eBird Checklist Sharing!

Do you have a group of birding friends that are all devoted eBird users? Has it been frustrating that each of you has to enter your joint birdwalks into eBird separately? We are very excited to release eBird Checklist Sharing, which now allows you to copy checklists to another user’s account with the click of a mouse. From now on, when you go birding with friends you can designate who will be keeping the list and that person can enter the eBird list for the group. That checklist can be shared with the group using just an email address or eBird username. And once a checklist has been shared, you can add or delete species observed so that the list represents just what YOU saw. Read on for more information.

Klamath-Siskiyou eBird Aids in Local Conservation Efforts

Employees from state and federal wildlife and land management agencies often seek information from bird conservation initiatives (e.g., Partners in Flight) about bird distribution to help develop more informed management strategies for species of conservation concern. Data from Klamath-Siskiyou eBird and the Avian Knowledge Network were recently used to meet such requests from the US Fish and Wildlife Service, Bureau of Land Management and US Forest Service.

Monitoring the Night Sky: Migrant Birds in the Klamath-Siskiyou Bioregion

A new age in bird “watching” has been unveiled with our ears to the sky.  The Klamath Bird Observatory (KBO) and US Forest Service’s Redwood Sciences Laboratory (RSL) long-term efforts to monitor birds in the northern California and southern Oregon have taken on a new and exciting aspect, in the form of white buckets affixed to the top of our facilities.

Changes to Listing Calculations

WHY ARE MY LISTS LOWER?? We have made a significant change to the way that the totals are calculated in the "My eBird" tab. In the past, these totals included all hybrids and spuhs--things like "scoter sp." or "Accipiter sp.". We have changed this so that the My eBird lists now exclude all subspecies, hybrids, and spuhs that were not identified to the species level. If you report a subspecies, these automatically "roll-up" into the parent species. This means that the totals on the My eBird pages count species, not subspecies, hybrids, or spuhs. So, if you see the bird on the right and know that it's a White-rumped Sandpiper, great--enter it as White-rumped Sandpiper. But if you only know that it is some kind of peep, enter it as "peep sp."

An easy way to calculate distances and areas

Do you struggle to estimate mileage or area when eBird asks you to enter information for your Area Search or Traveling Count? If so, there are some excellent web-based tools that you can use to make your measurements much more accurate. Using these tools you can draw a shape around your favorite birding area to get an accurate calculation of the area or you can plot the route you took to get more accurate figures for your Traveling Count. Click the above link to read more and please remember that when you enter your data into eBird it is always more valuable if it has effort information-- click here to read why.

Welcome to Klamath-Siskiyou eBird!

Klamath-Siskiyou eBird highlights the birding and ecological wonder-the Klamath-Siskiyou Bioregion. A global review of bioregions identified the Klamath-Siskiyou Bioregion as one of extraordinary ecological and biological richness for its diversity of climates, habitats, and species. The Klamath-Siskiyou eBird application includes fourteen counties in southern Oregon and northern California. Enjoy exploring the birds in the Klamath-Siskiyou Bioregion and contributing to science and conservation.

Explore the Birds of the Klamath-Siskiyou

Klamath-Siskiyou eBird offers you the ability to explore the birds of the Klamath-Siskiyou Bioregion. To view and explore the data of our bioregion, click here.

eBird Data Quality

What do we do when you report birds as rare or far out of range as this Siberian Taiga Flycatcher at Putah Creek, California, found by eBirder John Sterling, or the Ivory Gull found near New York City? Even more complex is the issue of how to deal with records of early/late migrants, or out of season records of lingering birds at local scales. Issues surrounding how to verify data like these certainly come into play when maintaining a database of records that is meant to become part of the scientific record. As with any large-scale citizen-science project open to the public, there is the possibility that erroneous data will be submitted. At eBird we consider data quality to be paramount, and we're taking every step possible to ensure that our data are the best they can be. Using advanced data vetting technology, we've developed a combination of automated filters and a network of regional editors that work together to verify eBird data. Each eBird submission, regardless of observer or location, is checked for data quality in exactly the same way.